Cellular telephone users may receive messages from any sender over a cellular telephone network. Cellular telephone messaging is a widely utilized form of communication that continues to gain in popularity. Cellular telephone messaging may encompass many different forms, including messages, data, photographs, and/or other types of information. For purposes of the present disclosure, the term “message” is intended to encompass messages, data, photographs, and/or any other types of information passed across a cellular telephone network. One form of cellular telephone message, the short message service (SMS), has particularly contributed to rapid deployment of cellular telephone messaging over wireless networks.
Cellular telephone messages attempt to mimic real-time communications by sending a message to an intended destination as quickly as possible over wireless networks. The delivery time of a cellular telephone message may be adversely affected by undesirable cellular telephone messages because undesired cellular telephone messages may occupy limited and valuable cellular telephone network resources.
As with many other forms of electronic communications, cellular telephone messaging may be abused by certain users of a wireless network. The sending of spam or other types of unsolicited communications is of particular concern in cellular telephone messaging. The cellular telephone messages may be unsolicited and the content may be annoying, offensive, or may interfere with reception of legitimate messages.
Moreover, most cellular telephone messaging services charge a per-use fee to a user for every cellular telephone message sent or received. Thus, a recipient of an undesirable cellular telephone message will incur a cost for receiving messages the user does not want.